


Getting Back Home

by Teleportation_Magic



Series: Maybe Verse [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Angsty Nebula, Awesome Wanda Maximoff, Broken Families, Exasperated Stephan Strange, Fluff, Gen, Mildly Good Loki, The Black Order - Freeform, families not of choice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-07 06:36:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18405128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teleportation_Magic/pseuds/Teleportation_Magic
Summary: Tiny ficlets of the team on their way home. Feat: Our Magical Trio, The Original Avengers, The Guardians, A Buncha New Avengers (Peter, Vision, Sam), Nebula and prolly some people I forgot about. These aren't in chronological order.Updates'll come whenever the mood strikes.





	1. My Body, My Diary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nebula remembers her first (only) family. She sees their hands on almost every limb of hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You don't have to read the prequel for this to make sense, but its recommended. Otherwise, just know that everyone's alive, and heading back to Earth/Asgard/Dropping them off so they don't have to deal with 'em.

It was awkward, being back with her sister. 

Nebula knew how to fight with her sister, against her sister, and more recently, for her sister. She knew fighting. She survived first, and fought second, and that was the order of her universe. Survive. Fight. Survive. Fight. And after she'd freed herself, she disregarded the first more than she should have. She knows that. 

So that was the first thing she'd asked her sister. If she'd like to spar. And Gamora had said no. 

It was an odd thing. She'd never said no before. Never. It was... somewhat entertaining to fight with her (before Thanos ruined it) and she hadn't thought things had changed that much. 

Later she threw knives with Clint. He outdid her every time - He got bullseye on bullseye on bullseye. literally, one time he'd used needled that sunk into one another. At that point, she had accused him of cheated. He'd been affronted, then, that she thought he wasn't as good as he clearly was. 

Sometimes she sparred with Natasha. Natasha was great - but as a Terran with flesh and bone, Nebula had to be cautious. Careful. Never reaching. 

She wondered if Gamora and Proxima were like that when they had to first teach her to fight. 

Thanos never formally taught them much - he'd throw them into a pit and see who survived. However, they were sent on missions together. So when she joined what Thanos called their family, and she'd been told to find rumors of powerful magical artifacts on Titania, Gamora and Proxima had taken her aside. 

They had started with basic combat training. She had been decent at it, nothing special. But then they moved onto finding information - and Nebula knew how. She could flit through bars, wear masks, drink with the hardiest men and braid her hair with the rest of the women. She remembered one instance, during the first mission, where there was a small orphanage. She had sat down besides a small girl, who was rumored to be the daughter of an Asgardian and Terran, who'd been placed far far away, because of the Asgardians' distaste for mixed children. The girl had run, of course, but Nebula could be silent, and hear whispers in the air, and found her, and when she did, she was able to force the information out of her. She learned of the rumors that the Tesseract had reemerged, and when she heard that it was blue, and bent space-time, she knew it was what she was looking for. Thanos had patted her on the head once when they'd returned with the information.

Proxima had hated that.

She'd challenged her, and Thanos has demanded that they fight. And Nebula remembered being barely able to return Proxima's blows in the beginning. Proxima wouldn't make it quick, though, and the fight dragged on and on and on. She knew she'd lose. Thanos and Gamora, and the rest of her soon-to-be-siblings knew that she would lose. She was played with, a blow on the head, a stripe across her side, as Nebula lunged for Proxima, only for her to evade, evade, evade.

Nebula didn't surrender. She wouldn't. And none of her blows landed, except

except

one.

One singular blow landed on Proxima's left eye, and Nebula saw her soon-to-be sister wretch away from her. Proxima's eyes flashed, before she returned, with killing intent behind her eyes. She striked Nebula down to the ground, and placed one foot on her chest. When Nebula couldn't move, couldn't even dream of getting out, she had thrust the butt of her spear against her head, again, and again, and again, until her eyesight was swimming. 

Gamora finally asked their father to call the match. Nebula allowed herself to fall into blackness.

When she woke up, she had a new eye.

Sometimes she'd stalk over to the Magical Three (Stark called them that sometimes. Loki threatened to stab him). Strange, with his efficiency and hidden flair for the dramatic, reminded her of Ebony. If she'd been devastated at Gamora's passing, she was... discomfited by Ebony's. He didn't love her, she doesn't think. But they were not enemies. Unlike Proxima, who saw her as a potential replacement, or perfect,  _perfect_ (not her fault) Gamora, Ebony wasn't competition. He was an unchanging element in the Sanctuary, the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. When she'd been at the Sanctuary for a few months, long enough that he was convinced she would be staying, he took her aside and taught her how to throw knives and aim her gun. She was abysmal when they'd started, and his temper was furious. She remember flying up into the air and staying there, for hours, while screaming for someone to help her down, while she couldn't eat, nor sleep, until he returned with a dagger and told her to  _try again._

She improved. He would have hurt her had she not. But there were moments when he was... kind. Not cruel. Bearable. In those moments, she would beam, and he would smile, and there would be a moment where she would think,  _yes yes this is my brother._ Then it would pass, like almost everything good in the sanctuary. 

She remembered one small moment with Ebony, that always stuck with her. He would levitate tiny shards of glass, and she would shatter them into a million pieces with her tiny gun. He would tap her on the head when she hit each of the moving targets. After they had gotten through all the glass, he would pull some lava, and the shards would be smoothed under it. Then he would levitate the pieces again. 

It was fun.

One day Thanos came to watch. She did not know why now, why would he look after the progress of his weakest child? But he watched her. And she was nervous. But she hit every single target, one after the other after the other. 

Save one. One single pane had drifted, and she was just a tad too far. Every other shot shattered, but this one bounced off the far wall somewhere.  She could feel Thanos's gaze on her, and Nebula knew she was panicking. She knew something bad was coming. There was nothing she could do to stop it. 

When it was done, Thanos took her by the arm. He said quietly to her  _don't you want to be perfect? Your arm failed you. Let us replace it with something more... reliable._

She laid down on the familiar white bed, before closing her eyes. Something pressed on her, before Thanos said "No. Let her feel the weight of her failure."

The arm came off painfully. The prosthetic took her weeks to get used to, weeks where she hid from Proxima. And in the end, Ebony taught her how to shoot with her tiny, blue arm.

Cull Obsidian was different from the rest of them. She and Gamora were both analyzers, both able to break a foreign situation down and integrate themselves into it. Gamora would make people around her like her, and Nebula would handle finding them, through clues and hints and rumors on the wind, before pulling it out of them. Proxima was a trap builder, and Ebony was their sorcerer. Nebula hadn't seen much of Corvus, but when he was with them, he was in charge of leading them, and he could build tactics quickly.

Cull... was slightly stupid. He was large, and a heavy hitter, and good for little else. Proxima used to intimidate him into doing her chores for her, undesirable tasks and maintenance of her and Corvus's living spaces. Nebula had also been drafted into it, for a time, and they'd worked side by side. He was a distraction, nothing more, nothing less. They had a bit of an understanding, where she would help him and he would help her. On one of Proxima's discarded missions, they had to find a few new members to join Thanos's ranks - a group of mages, who could reanimate the dead for a time. They hand't taken kindly to the request, and send a horde of boy creatures after them. 

One of them crushed her left lung. Corvus finished off the last few, before bludgeoning the sorcerers to death, and staring at her. Nebula was certain for a second, that she was going to die.

He swung her over his shoulder, and they returned home. When they returned home, she felt the entirety of the left side of her chest replaced with metal parts that meshed almost seamlessly. Almost.

Later, they both hunted Proxima down, when Corvus was away. She never tried to intimidate them again. When she heard of Cull's death, a small squirm of guilt had opened up in her chest. She didn't know why.

After Gamora and Proxima finished teaching her the basics, she was foisted off to Corvus. He hated her, but so did Proxima, and anything Proxima hated Corvus hated as well. He set her up with poorer weapons, and trained her by forcing her into combat. If she lived, she won. It was rough, but she learned how to use her twin daggers, how to spin them, and get close and hide them so she could sneak in to insert them into his veins. She never did, of course, they weren't supposed to actually kill their siblings, but even he was forced to acknowledging her skill when she had almost gotten the knife through. One day, though... one day she wasn't quick enough. One day, his spear came down, and it went straight through her leg. 

It was grisly.

He tore her off of it, before cleaning his spear, and raising an eyebrow at her. She could barely walk, but she would make it. She would get to the white walled room. She had to. 

While she was walking (limping (crawling)) through the halls, Gamora found her. She watched her silently drag herself through, before picking her up and placing her arm across her shoulder and walking with her. She left her right outside the door. She dragged herself through. Her leg was so damaged the entire thing had to be cut off, and replaced with a different limb. The blue leg would shift around when she tapped it, and every now and then it would send a 

Gamora was an odd one. A few months after Nebula's first year here, Gamora had asked her to sleep in her room. In the next few months, it became clear why - Proxima saw them both as potential replacements, and in her paranoia, she wanted to ensure that that they wouldn't be able to. Nebula wondered why she never bothered to in daylight - but she supposed that Thanos wouldn't approve of that. Not after they'd been through so much training. Gamora slept in one corner, and Nebula would sleep in the other. They were careful to ensure that their times never overlapped. Proxima came, one time, but Gamora had began dueling her, and Nebula had woken. Together they had been able to beat her back, and she'd leave them alone. It was wonderful. 

After that, Proxima left her mostly alone. She and Gamora kept training against themselves. They learned quickly, and they knew each other's tells almost perfectly. When they went out to fight together, she and Gamora worked perfectly. Wherever Gamora wasn't, she was. Whenever her back was turned, Gamora covered her.

Things went this was for a few more months. Nebula doesn't know what changed one day. but Thanos called them both in. By that time, he was Father, he was the shadow in the darkness that even Proxima and Corvus and Ebony were terrified of. Thanos lurked in the halls of the Sanctuary always, even when he wasn't there. He was omnipresent, and knew any tiny detail that you thought was secret. Thanos was as unstoppable as the dry winds on Sanctuary, or the tall waves on her home planet that she only half remembered, or the splinting of the earth that sometimes overcame Xander.

He called them together, and gave them one single command.

"Fight"

So they fought. And the fought. And they fought and fought and fought.

And Gamora won. 

The first time, he replaced her other arm when she had moved it away to prevent it form being cut off. The second time her other ankle was replaced, after Gamora had struck it out from under her. The third time, she rest of her thigh was taken when she was stabbed there.

She doesn't know what number it was, but she always remembered one specific fight. She miscalculated what Gamor would do, and Gamora feinted, and Nebula fell for it. Thanos's shadow fell over her "Your mind has failed you, hasn't it?"

No. No. No no no no no no no, not her mind. He could take her body, but not her mind. Not when that was hers. No. No. She fought him, stabbing and raging and twisting and aching, before she was placed in the lab, and they tore part of her brain out and placed something else there.

She ached. The memories still ached sometimes, with the aging tech, and the degradation. She wondered if one day, the parts would give out and she'd fall apart. 

Nebula was lost. Adrift. She didn't know what she wanted to find.


	2. Tutalage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strange enlists Loki to help him teach Wanda magic.
> 
> It goes about as well as you'd expect.

The first thing Wanda saw when she entered her room was Loki tied to a chair. 

Now this was not as abnormal as it should have been. Loki had been slowly driving the rest of the crew mad, and since Strange was one of the few people that could manhandle him into someplace where he wouldn't cause havoc, he was responsible for giving everyone else a break every now and again. Of course, if Strange didn't succeed, then Thor was brought in, but no one liked that since there was always, always many causalities. Many furniture, but Stark had thrown a bottle at his head when they'd accidentally (or maybe on purpose, who knew anymore) burned down half his wardrobe. 

No, what was abnormal were the sheets of paper, depicting various runes. Wanda stopped. "No"

Strange raised an eyebrow. She ran foe the door, before discovering that it'd locked when she entered. Wanda contemplated knocking down the door, before she imagined Peter's face (Senior, of course.) He screamed like a little girl if someone so much scratched the paint on his walls, much less if she knocked down a door. 

"Fine"

Loki was grinning. This was going to go poorly. She walks over, and Strange takes her hand, before asking her to conjure up her magic and hold it in the air. She allows her red to materialize, before following his fingers in the rune he is tracing. As she gets closer and closer to finishing it, she smiles as the magic flows through her veins - it was comforting in a way she enjoyed. She was finishing up the tail, and moving on to the dotting, where there was one patte-

The thing exploded. 

She had fallen backwards. Loki's front was covered in soot, and Strange's cloak was aggressively dusting him off. Wanda looked at the papers with trepidation "Was that supposed to happen?"

"No. It was a water summoning rune. I have no idea how it got messed up that badly."

"She summoned a fire instead. Strange how badly did you mess this up?"

"I didn't! This is the rune, look at it yourself, _your highness_ "

"Why thank you Strange, for acknowledging my position as royalty. Much appreciated. Either way, maybe Wanda wrote it incorrectly?"

"No... no I followed what he did."

They paused for a second, before Strange looked up. "Wait. I have a theory. Try... try this."

He took her hands again, and slowly traced out a circular rune, whilst keeping a small brown stone in the center of the circle. She was half way through Loki turned into a bird and pushes the pebble off. Stage is looking up, eyebrows pulled back, while Loki shifts back into his normal, not-human self.

"Are you enlarging an object, with her magic, on a ship with limited space? If this breaches the walls, we are all going to die. Quickly. From suffocation. Or perhaps it will be so hot that our blood boils off our bones, or so cold that our muscles crack away until there is nothing left but a frozen statue, immortalizing this incredibly bad idea." 

"Do you normally monologue so much?" 

"Um. Does he have a point? Because I think he has a bit of a point." 

"Thank you Wanda." 

"You are standing next to the Sorcerer Supreme and a Magician, whom, I hope is at least somewhat competent at containment spells. We should be fine." 

"Should be fine." 

"We took risks with half the universe. I'll take a risk with this." 

"Just to teach me magic?" 

"You should be pleased Wanda. He's risking his life, and the lives of everyone else in the ship just to teach you how to increase the size of a pebble!"

The cape hit him. A look of pure affront came over his face, before he turned his knife on it. The thing flew a few inches out of his grip, before swooping around and grabbing the back of his cape. Loki tripped backwards, but not without grabbing onto the red fabric, and pulling it on top of him. After an extended struggle, the cloak fastened itself back onto Strange, before flicking its collar. Loki's hair was scattered and he was pointing a knife at Strange, and mouthing words in a language that Wanda couldn't quite understand. 

The door creaks, and Wanda hears heavy footsteps against the back She sees Thor walk in, axe hung over his shoulder, looking around. 

"I... heard something from the hall. Something about a, well, cloak?" 

Loki turned into a bat. He flew out. 

Thor looked slightly alarmed "I forgot he could do that. I was hoping that he forgot he could do that." 

A resigned expression flit across Strange's face. A panicked yelp was heard across the hall. Wanda felt her heart sink, as a stray arrow reverberated against the door. Cackling echoed through their doorway, and a muffled swear interrupted it. 

Thor sighed "Let us go and fix whatever mischief my brother's caused."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Whaddya think? Comment please!


	3. Why do you sit in the dark?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki and Nebula talk. They both gain a friend.

Loki avoided Gamora. Whenever he saw her, he would remember the Sanctuary, remember the screaming, the pain, and the misery that coated its walls. Remembered the Other that stood over him, that didn't want anything from him - not information, not promises, not oaths of fealty. They pained him to pain him, to shred his mental defenses, while she sat there and oversaw, ensured that  _My father's will was done._

He avoided Nebula. He remembered the rage in her eyes as she brought hot iron over his skin, warping it beyond belief. He remembered the agony that peirce him when she placed metal over his chest, and sent electricity coursing through him. Loki remembered. He didn't want to. He didn't want to remember how she screamed when he refused to break - how she lost her left hand because of him. He didn't want to think about the food, scrapes really, that she'd given him, when he was starving. He wanted to forget the pity that stirred in him, when he saw Thanos throw her aside to look at her sister, the ache that burst open in his own chest for her to win, to best her sister once. 

She never did, of course, not while he was there. 

For their parts, Nebula and Gamora stayed away as well. Gamora hid away with her captain, a blond dimwit who spat odd lines that the spider-child would laugh along to. Nebula stayed in the shadows, where she wouldn't be seen. Sometimes he wondered if she was even on the ship. 

The craft got... loud sometimes. Thor had always enjoyed hosting a party, and the other members on the ship matched him, drink for drink. Loki had never seen a mortal do it, but apparently Stark managed. Loki would sometimes participate, sometimes not, but he always ended up hiding from his elder brother. For some ungodly reason, the oaf still believed he enjoyed the affair, all evidence to the contrary, and Loki spent a decent amount of time slowly sliding out of view. This time, he was hoping that his brother wouldn't come looking for him, not after last time.

Slowly sliding out, he retreated to a small room, close the the main hub, but far enough away that he could escape the incessant noise. He opened a door quietly, and slide inside, before a knifepoint was at his throat. Loki stopped. He looked up, and Nebula's face cam into view. They stood there, for a few moments, before he drawled "Do you mind?"

She took a step back, before sheathing her weapon. "Leave. I was here first."

"'I was here first?' How old are you? Five?"

Nebula threw a knife inches away from his head "Leave! Or else I swear I'll force you to!"

"Hm. No. This room is large enough for us both." Loki turned before sitting down on one of the scatted chests of stuff layog about. Nebula watched him coldly, not moving an inch, before turning away and settling on a bed nearby.

They sit in the quiet until the door opens, and Thor stands there, looking around. "Brother! Come join us, we are telling tales with the others!"

"Thor, I have informed you that I have no desire to speak with you or your mindless friends. Or participate in your party. Leave me be."

"But brother! Come join us! Don't sulk here all alone!"

"I... am not. I am talking with Miss Nebula here. We were having quiet conversation, before you interrupted."

Thor's eyes darted over to Nebula's corner. "Oh! Were you? Lady Nebula, what were you talking about?"

Nebula's face twisted into one of disgust "Leave me be Asgardian! I have no desire to speak with you."

Thor blinked. Once. Twice. Loki could swear he could see the edge of a smile on his face. "Well, then, I suppose the two of you could carry on. Glad to see you reaching out Loki!" The door shut swiftly in front of them, just before Loki's knife hit the center of it.

"Shame."

There was a moment of silence "Isn't he your brother?"

"Yes. What of it? Have you never stabbed your sister before?"

"Never."

"You. Have never stabbed your sister before?"

"Not stabbing exactly."

Loki raised a single eyebrow. "Not stabbing, exactly? Pray tell."

"I choked her. I found her on a distant planet - and well. I wanted to best her in combat. So I did."

"Congratulations."

There was a lull there.

"You were - you were the Asgardian who Fath-Thanos sent to Midgard yes?" 

Loki winced "Aye."

"The same Midgard that the others are from?"

"Quite."

"And they forgave you."

"I... suspect they have not. At least not the ones involved in the invasion. Wanda and Strange have, but they weren't an active part of it."

"Ah." 

"Why? Who's forgiveness are you longing for?"

Nebula's back goes completely straight, and she slowly walks towards him. "Noone's. I don't need anyone's forgiveness." At this she stalks out of the room, back into the hallway.

"Well." Loki said to the room "That went well."

* * *

Weeks passed. Loki asked how slow the ship was moving and Quill was deeply, deeply insulted. 

"The Milano is my baby. My darling. How could you insult it?"

"It's a pile of scraps, held together with tape" Nebula rasped out "Its barely a ship, at this point."

"Nebula!"

"Sister, please try not to insult Peter again."

Loki smirked and stared at his fingernails "So you don't want her to say that his taste in music is atrocious, or that his hair looks dumb, or that his stomach is really growing out?"

"Or that he screams like a baby, and he is a bit of a moron, and his combat skills are weak?"

"My combat skills are not weak! Tell em Gamora."

Gamora opened her mouth for a second, before closing it and turning it away. Quill turned to Gamora "Gammy?"

Her eyes flashed, before she turned to him with murder in her eyes. He took one look at her, and ran.

Loki and Nebula flashed smirks at each other, before turning away, deeply, deeply disturbed.

* * *

"And we need someone to pick up rations in the market. Nebula and Loki, you'll be handling that."

They stared at each other. They turned to Steve "No."

Steve looked up, before sighing with his Captain Face on. "Why not?"

"I don't want to work with her."

"He's a whiny brat."

"Well, apologies, but that's what the rotations have turned out. I promise, we'll try not to pair you lot up in the future. But please. For this mission, we need the two of you to work together. This uses your skillsets in particular."

They glared at each other. "Fine."

"Good. And stop speaking in unison, Thor's looking alarmed."

Loki smirked "Why do you think I do it?"

The market was packed tight, and well. Someone was bound to recognize Nebula.

"You're the daughter of the Mad Titan."

"No." Nebula kept her head bowed. "No, I am not."

"Yes you are. It was your father's fault my son died!"

"I thought the dusted had been restored?"

"My wife was holding our son when she faded. A child for a child... that is only fair."

Her strikes at her, and she leaps out of the way. He is strong, and his staff lands inches away from Nebula. She knows that if it hits her, she'll be able to recover. She can recover. She always does.

He doesn't get the chance to do anything further.The staff is hit out of his hand, and the tip of a knife appears in his chest. Loki raises an eyebrow at her. "Well? Let's go."

Nebula stands slowly, limbs extending.

"You did not have to take that for me." She murmurs under her breath.

Loki pauses, before looking at her sideways "I did not have to," He agrees, "but I did." He speeds up, and they go like that, next to each other, jogging up stairs to the ship.

Nebula stays quiet. Later she asks Steve if she could be on rotas with Gamora or Loki. He looks at er sideways, head cocked, and agrees.

* * *

Nebula is sitting cross legged in a corner. She is looking at he game board. She used to play with Obsidian, but well. She stares at it.

The door creaks open. A face appears. "Ah you appear to have occupied the room. I suppose I'll have to find somewhere else."

Nebula almost lets him walk out of the room. "Play me."

He peers back in "Why?"

"This is my favorite game. I imagine it is also yours. You wouldn't have come in here otherwise."

He stares at her, before smirking a little, a rough thing. "Fine. But I go first."

"Deal."

They play. It is an old game, from parts of the galaxy that even Nebula hasn't explored.

It is a game of chance. That was why she played it with Cull. He enjoyed strategy games, but he was so bad at them, and they weren't allowed to do things they were bad at. So they did this instead.

Loki rolled the four chips. They fell, two of them face up and another two face down. He took a look at the board, and _look, that would move me up six spaces._ He moved his tiny avatar.

Nebula looked the pieces carefully.

She rolled. Her pieces revealed a single side up.

She looked at the board. It told her to move up three, upon which she would be frozen for two turns.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

He smiled serenely.

 


End file.
